You Can’t Put a Label on EAA

May 2, 2013 –

by Jack Pelton, EAA, Chairman of the Board,

None of us want to be labeled. Yes, we all have our professional skills, our favorite activities, personal beliefs, and attitudes about everything from what we eat to where we live. But slap a label on us, and we are confined. A label puts one in a pigeonhole unable to grow and change and, well, experiment.

No matter how hard we try to avoid being labeled, others will insist. And that’s an issue I see for us EAAers. The aviation world has put a label on EAA and many have stuck us in that pigeonhole, and that is something we can’t allow to happen.

EAA was founded 60 years ago by people who wanted to build their own airplanes. The very first homebuilts were air racers and aerobatic airplanes, even though we called it acrobatics back then. They were single-seaters with a very limited mission…